A shiver ran up his spine, making him feel thankful to still be alive. He noticed that there was a large walk-in larder room just off the kitchen. Looking at the two men on the floor, he decided it was worth locking them somewhere secure, so dragged both of them into it. Before leaving them he made a thorough search of their pockets, but was not surprised to find them empty. The lack of identification was a factor that worried Dillon. He used a chair to wedge the door firmly shut, collected up the Uzi that he’d taken off the dead man in the woods and after switching off the kitchen lights, left the house through the back door.
He found his torch, ran to the tree line again and flattened himself on the ground. He waited a moment and was then sure that there was a fifth member of the hit squad still out there in the pitch black, waiting.
He ran away from the spot and circled round to the rear of the garage. Someone called out softly from the shrubbery next to the front porch, “Rob! Is that you?”
Dillon whispered a reply and waited for the assassin to show himself. Carefully, with senses heightened and adrenalin rushing, he pulled the silenced Glock free from its holster. His breathing suddenly calm, his professionalism kicking into reality.
Nothing, no sounds of approach, and then the figure glided into view – its attention focussed directly ahead, sensing rather than seeing Dillon nearby on its left side. The hooded head, mere inches from the levelled Uzi-K2 machine pistol, snapped left and Dillon was staring into its dark menacing eyes.
The rear of the garage became the target. Wood and plaster splintered and disintegrated as the silenced weapon delivered its deadly payload in the general direction of where Dillon had been standing. Dillon flattened himself on the ground, rolled once, and then again raised the Glock in both hands and fired the weapon. The assassin was smashed back against the house and drilled with the entire magazine, each round holding the body upright, dancing and twitching until the ‘dead man’s click’ reverberated in Dillon’s skull and brought the world back to a sudden echoing silence. Dillon fumbled for a fresh magazine, trying not to choke on the cordite reek that filled his nostrils and throat.
The corpse slithered to the ground in a crimson pool of its own blood. The fresh magazine clicked firmly into place and Dillon slowly got to his feet and switched on the torch. The pulped brains of the dead assassin were spattered, along with gore and blood, across the wall of the house. He stood staring at the corpse for a brief moment.
“What the fuck is going on here?” he said softly.
He stepped gingerly around the corpse and then headed back into the house through the kitchen door. He switched on the lights and pulled the chair away from the larder door. Dillon stood well back, the Glock trained and ready on the two men inside. The one who Dillon had knocked unconscious was still dazed and firmly bound, but the other one had managed to get free and as soon as the door opened, launched himself through the doorway towards Dillon.
The bullet slammed into the assailing man’s shoulder with the force of a train, sending him reeling across the stone floor of the kitchen where he lay prone until Dillon kicked him hard in the thigh. He groaned as Dillon rolled him over onto his back with the toe of his boot. Looking up, he said defiantly.
“You’re the bastard we’ve been sent to sort out, aren’t you?” The accent was northern Irish, without a doubt, and in a lot of pain.
“You need a hospital, mate. Most likely a blood transfusion the way you’re bleeding there. But first I want to sort a few things out. Afterwards I’ll call an ambulance.”
“I want a doctor, not a bloody ambulance. I’ve got a special number to ring.”
“Why not a hospital? Because you’re definitely going to need a transfusion, you know?”
Blood was freely seeping out of the wound and pooling on the floor.
“You know exactly why. I don’t want the police involved. The doc will fix me up.”
Dillon had to gauge the situation and consider how long he could wait calling anyone before the man became unconscious or, died.
“Why should I help you? After all, I’m the one you’ve been chasing around the woods trying to kill for most of the night. You can stay there and bleed to death for all I care. It really won’t worry me, especially as I’ve already killed three of your companions and your mate in there is trussed up like a turkey. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t put a bullet in your thick skull right here and now?”
“For pity’s sake, you said you’d call an ambulance.”
“Who sent you down here to kill me?”
“Look, we just get a text message, right? The number is always withheld and the instructions are always to the point. We’re told what to do and that the bloke who lives here would know all about it when we arrived. He was instructed to get lost for a while, and we were to hide inside the house to deal with anyone trying to break in. When the job was finished we had to phone the old man and then he would come back from wherever he’s been. By that time we would have disappeared, taking with us any incriminating evidence to bury in the woods. A straightforward job.”
Dillon glanced around the room, spotted a towel by the kitchen sink, grabbed it and threw it at the wounded man.
“Press it against the wound – it’ll help to slow the bleeding. Be quick about it.”
The injured man did as Dillon ordered and leant back against the wall. Five new faces; Dillon had never seen them before. But then why should he, it was way off his usual turf. When the assassin complained and wouldn’t answer Dillon’s questions, he lost his patience and hauled the man over onto his front. He screamed with the searing pain in his shoulder, had his wrists and ankles roughly bound together and was then heaved back into a sitting position.
Dillon stared down without remorse. At least he had fought in self-defence – these men were paid killers.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked.
“It’s not important to us who you are. We’d rather not know. We do know that you’ve been poking your nose in where it shouldn’t be and that you’ve really upset some pretty important people.”
“Don’t go getting brave, dickhead. Or you might end up with a hole in the other shoulder.”
Dillon walked over to the other man. He appeared to still be unconscious. Kneeling down, Dillon felt for a pulse and was satisfied that he wasn’t dead. As he went to stand up, he noticed a small pouch attached to the man’s belt. It annoyed him that he’d missed it the first time he had searched him. He unbuckled it and slid it free, went back out into the kitchen and stood over the now semi-conscious man.
“Now then, let’s see what we’ve got in here, shall we?”
There was at least twenty grand in fifty pound notes, presumably kept by the gang’s leader and paid out as an individual cash bonus to each man when the job was over. He put the cash in his jacket pocket and left the injured man slumped on the stone floor, ignoring his pleas for help and a doctor. Without a backward glance he left through the back door, closing it quietly behind him.
Dillon went to the garage. The main electric door was still firmly locked down with the heavy-duty padlock, and he assumed that one of his would-be killers must have climbed through the broken window at the rear of the building to switch off the alarm. Dillon crouched below the window, listening for a moment, in case there was someone positioned inside the garage. He slipped a fresh magazine into the Uzi and checked the Glock once again, setting both weapons to single shot only. He slithered over the sill, fell silently to the concrete floor and waited behind a stack of wooden crates for a few seconds before swinging the torch beam around the interior. Surprisingly there wasn’t anyone or anything lurking inside with intent to do him permanent harm. He found the light switch just inside the main door and wondered why the Conners hadn’t used it – perhaps to simply confuse the issue.
The first thing Dillon notic
ed was the metal shelving racks that were covering most of the wall space. Some were neatly stacked with cans of paint, and others had an assortment of tools on them. A sit-on lawn mower and a petrol leaf shredder were positioned to one side of the garage which was spotlessly clean; too clean. Apart from these things there was nothing else, except for the fifteen wooden storage crates stacked at the back of the building. Again, these were neatly positioned one on top of the other, and when Dillon lifted one he found that it was empty. And so were all the others.
Once he’d shifted a few of the crates, the long wooden trapdoor revealed itself. It was not locked and when he pulled the rope handle it opened on sprung-loaded hinges to expose the steps below. He shone the torch beam around the opening as he went down the steps to find it deeper than he at first thought it would be from above. He stood at the bottom of the steps – stooped forward because of the low ceiling height, torch in one hand, gun in the other, and wondered why it simply opened up into a narrow room and nothing more. Why the alarm and all the fuss for nothing, because that was all there was in there – nothing.
It appeared to be a deliberate decoy to divert his curiosity and attention. His gut instinct told him differently. He went round, feeling the smooth plastered walls with his fingertips. It was then that he noticed the hairline cracks in each corner at the far end of the room running from floor to ceiling. The force was unnecessary – the end wall swung on well-oiled pivot hinges and opened to reveal another passage, which was much darker and seemed to go on infinitely.
Dillon stood back smiling. It was so simple and had been beautifully constructed. He shone the torch beam through the opening. The passage was not that wide – there was limited headroom and he had to stoop to get through. He holstered the Glock and slung the Uzi over his shoulder as he stepped forward. The walls were of roughcast concrete and nowhere near as finished as the small room on the other side. Dillon counted off each pace he took, estimating that the passage was about a hundred feet from one end to the other. He ran the beam of the torch over the heavy metal door that now barred his way. It looked impregnable, but to Dillon’s surprise was unlocked and swung open into a much larger room on the other side. Perhaps the person, or persons, who had engineered the labyrinth, had not thought it possible for anyone to find their way to this area.
He entered the room, flicked on the light switch and the overhead fluorescent strip light flickered on. Apart from the heavy metal door he’d just entered through, the only other was a trapdoor in the ceiling at one end. He studied it for a brief moment, and then pulled it down, only to reveal a tunnel on the other side, which was circular and built of bricks and mortar. It went straight up, about twenty feet, and was covered in cobwebs and spiders.
An involuntary shudder ran through his body. The torch beam cut through the black to reveal a wooden cover at the very top.
A disused well, he thought, and then remembered that he’d seen it earlier when he’d called on Conner. He’d not taken much notice of it in the rear garden because it was virtually derelict and partially overgrown with brambles. He pushed the door back up into place and stood looking around the room. Occupying at least two thirds of the space were more wooden crates similar to those in the garage – some large, some small. All of them appeared to contain something, were numbered and their lids screwed down securely. As he scanned the room he noticed the six metal cases of the type the military use to transport ammunition around, lined up against the wall at the far end. On closer inspection he noticed that each had a heavy padlock protecting its contents. Dillon attempted to lift one of the boxes, almost gave himself a hernia and decided on another course of action. The first lock opened after only a few seconds of working the thin pick around the mechanism. He let the padlock fall to the ground.
As he lifted the lid a faint, musty locked-away smell reached him. It wasn’t an unpleasant smell, but rather one that you experience when you enter a room that’s been closed up for many years. He shone the torch inside and carefully peeled back the layer of hemp-like material to reveal what was underneath.
There were at least twenty gold bars neatly arranged in the bottom of the case. Dillon picked one up, turning it over and over in his hands. The density of gold is about 0.698 lb per cubic inch, and he guessed that the brick he was holding measured approximately 6 x 3 x 2 inches, or thirty-nine cubic inches. Mathematics was never one of his strong points, but he knew that the average gold bar weighed in at around 400 troy ounces and that its worth was something like £195.00 pounds sterling an ounce. Meaning that this brick at today’s price was worth around £76,500.
Twenty gold bars to each case, and a net worth of £1,500,000 each, he thought. So, if the other cases held the same amount they totalled nine million, give or take a few hundred thousand. All six cases had exactly the same contents. He took one bar out, wrapped it in a piece of the hemp and then closed all of the crates up again and replaced the padlocks; ensuring that they were positioned as they were before. He moved his attention to one of the wooden crates. He hunted around for something to prise off the lid and found a narrow length of flat steel bar thrown behind the boxes along with an ancient screwdriver. He spent the next ten minutes carefully removing all of the brass screws that held it down. Carefully packed inside was everything from oriental carvings to priceless works of art. By painstakingly sorting through the objects, Dillon estimated that there were forty ivory carvings and five paintings by two artists whom he had never heard of.
It was impossible to go through every crate individually and the boxes were all firmly screwed down. But when he tried to lift a few of them he was in no doubt that they all contained something. Each box had a three digit number branded into the wood, running consecutively, and Dillon made a mental note of the first and last crate numbers. It would take more time than he could risk to open every one of them, but what he did open merely confirmed his theory that they all had priceless works of art inside.
He went back through the tunnel to the small anti-room, carefully swung the concrete door back into place and was still surprised at how easily it moved considering how heavy it must be. The door was now the end wall again, and making certain that nothing was out of place he stood for a moment, and considered what he had discovered. It was certainly odd. Priceless art and gold bullion... it was the gold that was confusing him. Who had gone to so much trouble to hide these things, and why?
He went back up the steps and replaced the trapdoor, ensuring that the wooden crates were put in exactly the same positions as before. All the time he was mulling over the contents of the room below. He climbed back out through the rear window, dissatisfied and puzzled. As he crossed towards the house he heard the wounded man in the kitchen calling out.
Inside the house he switched on every light as he went from room to room so that finally the house was a blaze of lights. He started upstairs, searching for anything that might fill the gaps in his thinking. He decided to discard being careful and simply tipped drawers out onto the floor. He rummaged through the contents but found nothing of any significance.
There was nothing in the house, not even a shotgun. He could not believe that Harry Conner did not know what was in the garage – he was definitely involved in whatever was going on, most likely as a caretaker. Dillon looked around the room at the mess he’d created everywhere. Sheila would have something to say about that and Harry would be ordered, in regimental fashion, to clean it all up.
Serves him right, he thought.
Dillon found a small study downstairs and literally ransacked the place – smashing open anything that was locked. Again he found nothing that would explain why there was gold bullion and priceless works of art in a concealed room underground. The question why kept eluding him. He didn’t even find a list like the one he had taken from Julian Latimer’s apartment.
The one thing they would not know was whether or not he had discovered the trapdoor
in the garage, for he had repositioned every crate as he’d found it there.
The house had proved nothing, which explained why there was no alarm installed. But it was apparently unimportant that the television and DVD player along with the other electrical goods around the house might be stolen. This in itself told a small story.
But there was no explaining why millions of pounds worth of art and gold, which admittedly would keep whoever it belonged to in a luxury and privileged lifestyle, should warrant five trained men being sent down from London to protect it. And, whilst here, erase Dillon in the process. It simply didn’t add up.
Dillon glanced down at his Omega Seamaster. It was just after 3.15 a.m. on a mild early-summer morning. He had been there for well over six hours. He unstrapped the Uzi from his shoulder, released the clip and quickly ejected every cartridge from the chamber. He replaced the clip into the weapon and walked back through to the kitchen where the two men were still tied up. As he entered the room, the one he’d shot in the shoulder was still in a sitting position staring up at him malevolently. He had obviously got a second wind and had been trying to free himself.
“I’m bleeding to death, you bastard! Call the doc, like you said you would.”
The words came in a snarling flurry, but made little impact on Dillon who simply stood over him. The urge to put a bullet between his miserable eyes was almost too strong to resist.
“Where’s this doctor got to come from?”
“London. Where the fuck do you think?”
“He’ll be too late. It’ll take him at least two and half hours to get here. By which time you’ll be dead, old son.”
Shroud of Concealment (Jake Dillon Adventure Thriller Series) Page 22
